The blog of EagleSoft Ltd. Here, at EagleSoft Labs, I post about the development of my various retro homebrew, software, electronics, and indie video game projects, as well as review software, and post other geeky/nerdy stuff.

No, I have not flunked out of college, defaulted on my evil Satanic student loans and committed Grant Theft Education, been assassinated by the NSA, or died as a hobo... however, it is Tamkis' birthday! So, being still alive (for the time being), what have I done for my birthday, and what are my upcoming goals and plans for EagleSoft Ltd?

Firstly, due to gaining a whopping $500 tax return from my Uncle Sam for my birthday from last summer, I decided to devote a <$150 budget for purchases I needed and wanted to make. Some went towards important items such as a haircut, a new pair of professional dress shoes, and gasoline. A large chunk (~$80) went towards something I have been wanting to purchase for over 3 years, but did not have enough surplus money to purchase guiltlessly. With my love of technology, programming, tinkering around with modern and retro video game consoles and computing platforms, and video game development, I decided to purchase...

An EverDrive MD is a flashcart for the Sega Genesis and its add-ons. For those who don't know, a flashcart is a special type of cartridge for a cartridge-based video game system which allows the user to perform certain system functions and to play backed-up copies of video games (aka ROMs) on the real hardware, usually from an SD card. It is essentially a rewritable cartridge. With the usage of flashcarts, gamers can play not only official games, but also rom hacks, homebrew, dumped unreleased games, unlicensed games, rare games, and more! Specifically, the EverDrive MD can perform the following features:

"SEGA Master System Games supported

SEGA 32x games supported

CD-BIOS Loading function [for the Sega CD]

Hardware MegaKey [for playing import games]

Max. ROM size up to 7Mbyte

Return to menu after reset

High compatibility with Chinese clone systems

SRAM auto backup on SD card

Supported SD/MMC up to 32GB

FAT16 and FAT32 are supported

GameGenie cheat codes

Simple menu"

I ordered my cartridge from Stoneagegamer.com. Due to wanting to save money, I only ordered a bare PCB (with free cart label), instead of spending the extra $15.00 for a custom-fit cartridge shell. Luckily, a year earlier, I bought a cheap, poor quality sports game called Leader Board Golf for $2 with future intentions to cannibalize its case for an EverDrive. I also found some NOS empty VHS cases at a thrift store, so I repurposed one case as a Genesis Game case with EverDrive cover art I found online. After some drilling, sanding, removing and replacing those annoying Gamebit security screws (with some speciality GameBit drivers) and applying the game label over the old golf game, the case now aligns with the SD Card slot and the Sega Master System pause button, and the EverDrive is ready for play!

Pics of SAG box, EverDrive cart and case:

(Sorry cartridge, but you are being sacrificed for a higher purpose)

(Gamebit Screws replaced with normal ones)

(The Sega Monster System is complete!

Sega Genesis CD32x overpowered with EverDrive,backwards compatible with Sega Master System games,partially compatible with some Game Gear games,and also plays some Mapper 0 translated NES games)

The EverDrive MD will not only be used personally to play some great classic gamesm but more importantly, for contributing to the small Sega Genesis homebrew and game hacking communities. With it, EagleSoft Ltd can debug and test its homebrew software and hacks on real hardware, in order to verify if the software is indeed working correctly.

Other than acquiring an EverDrive MD for development, EagleSoft Ltd is not doing much lately, due to real-world responsibilities such as having to finish up the Spring college semester, prepare for an internship, and soon begin a summer semester.

We are currently working on creating the final v1.2 version of Ultra Air Hockey DX, which will have online multiplayer support. Once finished, the Android port will finally be published to the Google Play store, with both a free and paid version. The retro edition of Ultra Air Hockey for the Sega Genesis/Sega CD is being rebooted using SGDK rather than the BEX BASIC programming language. Furthermore, the Sonic CD Breakout fangame is still in development, and a Demo #3 is being planned for the next SAGE (Sonic Amateur Games Expo) iteration. Due to more reverse engineering efforts, it is possible to port (or rather, more specifically, "transplant") table sets and files from the PC version of Break GOLD to the Android version, so a mobile hack release may be possible too :).

About Me

Tamkis is a college graduate with a B.S. degree in software engineering, who is pursuing a career as a software engineer and a video game developer. He owns the website EagleSoft Ltd, where he posts his hobby and professional software and video games he developes, and is passionate about both retro and indie video game development.